Chapter 5

“Mr. Grey,” I said as the named man appeared in front of me. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

He didn’t look pleased—but probably not because of my words. He was just a naturally sullen-looking kind of villain.

Mr. Grey suddenly glanced around him. “Are you alone here? Thought I heard voices.”

“I like reading aloud. Wanna hear a little? I was just in the middle of War Between the—”

“No, I do not,” he said coldly.

The moment I told him to hide, Annol had actually poofed into a mass of mist again and went somewhere.

“Someone a bit cranky today, Mr. Grey? Or perhaps I should call you Mr. Asputel, instead?”

The man looked angry as he clicked his tongue. “I guess I can’t hide from the police, now can I?”

“No point in using fancy nicknames if you’re famous anyway, Mr. Grey,” I said, shrugging. “But I guess you’re here for vampires again, considering you’re one of them.”

This time he wasn’t quite so shaken. “What’s this nonsense?”

“You claim nonsense, and yet… the hospital under your care does draw blood from people, doesn’t it?”

The man’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “The hospital I am a board member of—I do not own it, mind—does, indeed, treat people, and that includes bloodletting as a matter of course. So what? You yourself told me vampires were fictional.”

“I also told you that I believe everything written in books.”

Oops, wait, I only said that to Annol. Mr. Gery looked confused, so I continued.

“Every metaphor has its basis in reality. So let me continue: you’re a vampire, and you’ve been seeking other vampires for a long, long time, and recently you’ve found one. Right? I can see on your face that I’m right.”

“Nonsense,” he kept denying.

“You’ve made a mistake coming here, Mr. Grey, asking things of the Prime Special Investigator in charge of knowledge. Do you realize I can have you surrounded right away?”

He took a step forward. “Surrounded? No one comes here. Didn’t see anyone when I snuck in.”

“—Snuck in, huh? As mist, perhaps? Hmm, I guess not, judging from your expression. But vampires have other ways of slipping in, I suppose.”

What was Annol doing at this moment? I hope he wasn’t thinking about trying to act the hero and try to save me or anything like that. We’d already established this wasn’t any sort of romance story.

Mr. Grey took a few more steps forward. “Has anyone ever told you that you know too much?”

I laughed. “Constantly.”

“Then you know knowledge is dangerous.”

“Yes, it is. And fascinating as well,” I added.

He glared at me hard, but I didn’t budge. Years and years of reading books made me realize that I could read people just as well.

“Don’t do anything foolish. Not with someone who knows more than you. I have no garlic or anything, but I have other ways of dealing with vampires.”

Added to these words, I unleashed one of my Looks—imagining my opponent as a particularly bad piece of literature.

Mr. Grey actually took a step back.

“Frankly,” I said, “I’m not that interested in whatever business you have enough to stick my nose into it. Plus, filling up the paperwork later would be such a bother. Not to mention I want to avoid doing anything that might harm my precious books… I’d rather just use the time to read more books. So how about you leave? Oh, right. There was a young man here before. I guess you were looking for him.”

“Wha… you really do know too much.”

“Yes, I know enough for me to be dangerous to you, just as I explained,” I said. “By the way, I advised him to get out of town, so if you really are interested, you’d better hurry.”

I could almost imagine poor Annol gasping, wherever he was. That was one way I could protect him, at least.

“Take that as a freebie,” I said, casually shooing him with my hand.

Mr. Grey gave me a nasty look, but then his face softened. “Hmm. I don’t dislike not having to dirty my hands, if I don’t have to.”

“Yeah, same. Hopefully we won’t meet again, Mr. Grey. Unless you want to join my book club, of course.”

No one ever wanted to.

He just clicked his tongue again, spun on his heels and was gone. Not by turning into mist or a bat or anything like that, just walking around one of the shelves.

I was curious about his method of entering and leaving, but didn’t feel like rising from my desk to find out.

Instead, I waited a couple of minutes just to make sure he didn’t come back, then turned around.

“Well… you can probably come out now.”

To my disappointment the young man simply stepped from behind a shelf rather than reforming himself from mist like before.

“Err… thank you for getting him off my trail,” he admitted. “I actually did think of skipping town…”

“Then you’d better stay now, where he won’t expect you,” I winked at him.

“…Right here?”

“Well… I can probably get another desk, if you want.”

“I’ll pass.”

Yup, no romance in the least.

There were a few moments of strained silence, as if Annol wasn’t sure what to do next.

“So, as I was saying before. Although we haven’t solved the main issue, I do have some good news for you.”

“Hmm?” He looked genuinely interested.

“It turns out,” I said, “that you’re not actually a vampire after all!”